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Outgoing mail spam blocker

I know this has been reported before, but it has become a real problem for me in the last two days and I am really getting annoyed.

I send out an email newsletter and other messages via a Yahoo group, and Tuesday my main message was blocked, and yesterday two more messages were blocked. I tried a chat with a Verizon rep, and the rep told me I could not send a message to more than 500 people - I patiently explained that I was sending it to *ONE* address which then took care of distribution, but was still *required* to try sending it to another address to verify I was not sending out 500 messages. Sheesh.

The chat was USELESS.

I have forwarded all three messages on to the "big brother spam permission" email address, and of course they do not respond, but only tell you to try an hour later to see if they "have adjusted their filters."

I understand that Verizon considers their mail system to be "free" and thus of low priority, but come on guys - this is the worst customer service I have seen lately.

FIX THIS, PLEASE!

Comments

somegirl

As stated in the Spam FAQ page, you will not get any response when sending the message to spamdetector.update@verizon.net for review. You attach the message that you are unable to send, and they review it. Depending on the outcome of the investigation, the filter will either be updated to allow the content that was previously blocked, or it will be determined to be a legitimate block and no changes will be made.

Some troubleshooting steps you can try:
If you have a signature, try removing one line at a time from it and attempting to send the message again. Some signatures look like "ads" to the filters, apparently.

If you are using a pop3 client (Outlook, Outlook Express, etc.) try sending your message from the verizon.net website. If this resolves the issue, then it is something that your client is adding to the message that is causing it to be blocked.

If the Subject line of your message has a whole bunch of "Fwd: Fwd: Re: Fwd:" try removing some of them.

Remove any links/URLs from the email one at a time to isolate if one of them is causing the block.

Some people have suggested sending the message to check@isnotspam.com for investigation. This may work for you as well.

scififan2

Thank you for your suggestions.

I have read the FAQ.

My messages - the ones in question, have no FWD in the subject, they are all new messages. No signature file. One of them had one link in the message, but it was essential, and could not be removed. I sent multiple similar messages last week with no problem, and then suddenly they are blocked.

I use Thunderbird, but again, if it worked last week, with essentially identical messages, then it seems there is a problem with the Verizon outgoing filter. What gets rejected seems to be random, but then the mystical beings that decide do not communciate with the underlings, so how can we know?

For the record, the messages are not spam, believe it or not.

JDoe5

"I send out an email newsletter and other messages via a Yahoo group, and Tuesday my main message was blocked, and yesterday two more messages were blocked."

I'm not sure what you mean by that referring to a "Yahoo Group". However, if you are sending out regular "news letters" then maybe you should not have a residential account but a business account. If the new letter is more organizational than business I can see why it is a residential account.

I'll repeat what I have suggested before...

Use a Word Processor to create the News Letter contents that would have been in the email body. From the Word Processor export the contents to a PDF file. Attach that PDF file to your email. Since all data in a PDF is compressed, none will appear "Clear Text" to the email content filters and thus won't get the email flagged as spam.

In another reply it was found that the person's company phone numbers were being flagged as spam. What I suggested was...

Create a GIF, JPEG or PNG that containts your contact information such as would be in your signature such as your name, address, phone numbers, etc.

Then insert that graphic that contains your contact information in your salutation (aka; signature block). Since the content filters work on Clear Text they can not "interpret" text in a graphic and the email you are sending won't get flagged as spam.

Example Graphic:

These simple obfuscation techniques will allow you to send email that had previously been blocked by the server declaring them as spam.

somegirl

@scififan wrote:
Thank you for your suggestions.
I have read the FAQ.
My messages - the ones in question, have no FWD in the subject, they are all new messages. No signature file. One of them had one link in the message, but it was essential, and could not be removed. I sent multiple similar messages last week with no problem, and then suddenly they are blocked.
I use Thunderbird, but again, if it worked last week, with essentially identical messages, then it seems there is a problem with the Verizon outgoing filter. What gets rejected seems to be random, but then the mystical beings that decide do not communciate with the underlings, so how can we know?
For the record, the messages are not spam, believe it or not.

If you try sending the message to a different address it gets blocked still, per your earlier description of the issue. Try sending the message to that test address without the link in it just to isolate whether the link is the cause of the block or not.

Once you isolate what piece of the message is being blocked, you can find a way around that piece. (If the link is an issue, maybe try a URL shortener.)

scififan2

With respect, I feel like I am on trial here. Please, let's not assume. Yahoo groups are a service offerece by Yahoo and used by many non-profit groups, like for instance Freecycle. In my case, I own and moderate a group for my local high school PTSA - have done so for more than 10 years. I do this as a volunteer, asking nothing in return. subscription is free to anyone that want to get the messages. During school days, I send out the text version of the broadcast morning announcements so that parents know what is happening in school - anyone with teens can relate to the fact they are not exactly forthcoming. I do this diligently, and as I said, as a free service to my school, community, and parents, since I think communication is critical to student achievement. Yes, I am that much of an idealist.

I have had Verizon email for about 5 years, and over that time, this problem has maybe cropped up 4 times total. Other than that, my messages have gone out fine, including this past Monday. Starting Tuesday, however, they are being blocked. Clearly, Verizon changed something that is causing my problem.

I do not want to send it as an attachment, since that makes the message size larger and I try very hard to not overfill inboxes of my subscribers. I send in plain text, so embedded text will not work.

What I really want is for Verizon to undo whatever it was they did. I know of no other way to reach them. If you have a suggestion of a better way to do that, I would appreciate it.

JDoe5

"I do not want to send it as an attachment, since that makes the message size larger and I try very hard to not overfill inboxes of my subscribers. I send in plain text, so embedded text will not work."

Unless you fill the PDF with large or HiRes graphics, the PDF files will not be so large as to overfill an InBox. Whiles most systems have a Max. size of 10MB per email message, most have 1GB or more of space on the server and if a 1MB email message takes the recipient over the edge it is their fault for not manageing their email. 1MB is worst case .Like I earlier stated, the contents of a PDF are compressed so none of the content is in Clear Text. Since a PDF is a compressed folrmat it actually takes up less space than Clear Text. It is embedded graphics that make a PDF larger.

Sending the subject matter contents as a PDF attachment is your best mitigation to having your email blocked.

abecedarian

Sending an attachment, even as a PDF, is not necessarily a solution. I have been having the same problem for two weeks, with NO useful assistance from Verizon.

I"m trying to send a membership list, one page, with email addresses, to a group of about 12 people.

After much experimenting, it turns out that my outgoing e-mail was getting rejected for one particularemail address in the PDF attachment. I have run the address thru spam detectors which tell me that he is not listed as a spammer. Interestingly (or maybe not)I am able to send to that person with no problems, and I am able to include his address in the body of the email. Just not in an attachment, even a PDF. I can send the rejected attachment to one of my other Verizon email addresses, too.

Their support was not helpful at all, nor do I expect them to ever resolve the issue.

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